Directional Selection Causes Decanalization in a Group I Ribozyme
A canalized genotype is robust to environmental or genetic perturbations. Canalization is expected to result from stabilizing selection on a well-adapted phenotype. Decanalization, the loss of robustness, might follow periods of directional selection toward a new optimum. The evolutionary forces cau...
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| Format: | Online |
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Public Library of Science
2012
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445466/ |
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pubmed-3445466 |
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pubmed-34454662012-10-01 Directional Selection Causes Decanalization in a Group I Ribozyme Hayden, Eric J. Weikert, Christian Wagner, Andreas Research Article A canalized genotype is robust to environmental or genetic perturbations. Canalization is expected to result from stabilizing selection on a well-adapted phenotype. Decanalization, the loss of robustness, might follow periods of directional selection toward a new optimum. The evolutionary forces causing decanalization are still unknown, in part because it is difficult to determine the fitness effects of mutations in populations of organisms with complex genotypes and phenotypes. Here, we report direct experimental measurements of robustness in a system with a simple genotype and phenotype, the catalytic activity of an RNA enzyme. We find that the robustness of a population of RNA enzymes decreases during a period of directional selection in the laboratory. The decrease in robustness is primarily caused by the selective sweep of a genotype that is decanalized relative to the wild-type, both in terms of mutational robustness and environmental robustness (thermodynamic stability). Our results experimentally demonstrate that directional selection can cause decanalization on short time scales, and demonstrate co-evolution of mutational and environmental robustness. Public Library of Science 2012-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3445466/ /pubmed/23028955 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045351 Text en © 2012 Hayden et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Hayden, Eric J. Weikert, Christian Wagner, Andreas |
| spellingShingle |
Hayden, Eric J. Weikert, Christian Wagner, Andreas Directional Selection Causes Decanalization in a Group I Ribozyme |
| author_facet |
Hayden, Eric J. Weikert, Christian Wagner, Andreas |
| author_sort |
Hayden, Eric J. |
| title |
Directional Selection Causes Decanalization in a Group I Ribozyme |
| title_short |
Directional Selection Causes Decanalization in a Group I Ribozyme |
| title_full |
Directional Selection Causes Decanalization in a Group I Ribozyme |
| title_fullStr |
Directional Selection Causes Decanalization in a Group I Ribozyme |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Directional Selection Causes Decanalization in a Group I Ribozyme |
| title_sort |
directional selection causes decanalization in a group i ribozyme |
| description |
A canalized genotype is robust to environmental or genetic perturbations. Canalization is expected to result from stabilizing selection on a well-adapted phenotype. Decanalization, the loss of robustness, might follow periods of directional selection toward a new optimum. The evolutionary forces causing decanalization are still unknown, in part because it is difficult to determine the fitness effects of mutations in populations of organisms with complex genotypes and phenotypes. Here, we report direct experimental measurements of robustness in a system with a simple genotype and phenotype, the catalytic activity of an RNA enzyme. We find that the robustness of a population of RNA enzymes decreases during a period of directional selection in the laboratory. The decrease in robustness is primarily caused by the selective sweep of a genotype that is decanalized relative to the wild-type, both in terms of mutational robustness and environmental robustness (thermodynamic stability). Our results experimentally demonstrate that directional selection can cause decanalization on short time scales, and demonstrate co-evolution of mutational and environmental robustness. |
| publisher |
Public Library of Science |
| publishDate |
2012 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445466/ |
| _version_ |
1611909801692889088 |